Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Conference on Metabolic Signaling and Disease: From Cell to Organism August 13 - 17, 2013 Project Summary This application seeks support for the meeting on Metabolic Signaling and Disease: From Cell to Organism to be held at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in August 13 - 17, 2013. The meeting will assemble leaders in the field, together with junior faculty, postdoctoral fellows and graduate students, to discuss the latest advances in our understanding of metabolic regulation and its role in normal physiology as well as a variety of disease states ranging from obesity to cancer. Metabolic processes are required for life, and are remarkably similar from organism to organism and from cell to cell. In mammals, specific cell types use metabolic pathways in highly specialized ways to conduct their cell-specific functions. Further, the specialized function of some cell types serves to maintain metabolic homeostasis of the, multicellular organism by regulating levels of hormone and metabolite messengers in the bloodstream. Metabolic diseases such as obesity and diabetes result when those processes fail. At the same time, cancer is increasingly recognized as a state whereby the malignant cell proliferates by altering its fuel metabolism and ignoring metabolic signals. The meeting will cover a broad spectrum of topics ranging from regulation of metabolism in many different cell types to dysregulated metabolism in a variety of disease states. Each session will be chaired by a leading scientist in the field. Oral presentations will be given by a group of distinguished invited speakers as well as speakers selected from submitted abstracts. Selected speakers will include graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and junior faculty aiming for maximal inclusion of young investigators. Of special importance are the two poster sessions, where many participants can present their work in an atmosphere conducive to informal discussion. The meeting will be of moderate size, and we expect about 250 people to attend, the vast majority of whom will be presenting a poster or talk.